long journey, the infamous weather, the prospect of that horrid gulf
between Boulogne and Folkestone, would have been as nothing to Mrs.
Brown, had it not been for that settled look of anguish which had now
pervaded her husband’s face. “If you don’t find something to relieve me,
I shall never live through it,” he said again, sinking back into the
questionable comfort of a Parisian hotel arm-chair.
“But, my dear, what can I do?” she asked, almost in tears, standing over
him and caressing him. He was a thin, genteel-looking man, with a fine
long soft brown beard, a little bald at the top of the head, but
certainly a genteel-looking man. She loved him dearly, and in her softer
moods was apt to spoil him with her caresses. “What can I do, my dearie?
You know I would do anything if I could. Get into bed, my pet, and be
warm, and then to-morrow morning you will be all right.” At this moment
he was preparing himself for his bed, and she was assisting him. Then
she tied a piece of flannel round his throat, and kissed him, and put
him in beneath the bedclothes.
“I’ll tell you what you can do,” he said, very hoarsely. His voice was
so bad now that she could hardly hear him. So she crept close to him,
and bent over him. She would do anything if he would only say what. Then
he told her what was his plan. Down in the salon he had seen a large jar
of mustard standing on a sideboard. As he left the room he had observed
that this had not been withdrawn with the other appurtenances of the
meal. If she could manage to find her way down there, taking with her a
handkerchief folded for the purpose, and if she could then appropriate a
part of the contents of that jar, and, returning with her prize, apply
it to his throat, he thought that he could get some relief, so that he
might be able to leave his bed the next morning at five. “But I am
afraid it will be very disagreeable for you to go down all alone at this
time of night,” he croaked out in a piteous whisper.
“Of course I’ll go,” said she. “I don’t mind going in the least. Nobody
will bite me”; and she at once began to fold a clean handkerchief. “I
won’t be two minutes, my darling; and if there is a grain of mustard in
the house, I’ll have it on your chest almost immediately.” She was a
woman not easily cowed, and the journey down into the salon was nothing
to her. Before she went she tucked the clothes carefully up to his ears,
and then she started.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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